UCI Track World Cup: Most favourites confirm but shocks occur in Aguascalientes, Mexico

Team Pursuits, Team Sprints and Women’s Points decided; Men’s Omnium in progress

The first day of the third and final round of the International Cycling Union (UCI) Track World Cup in Aguascalientes, central Mexico, saw a number of big names confirm their class, but some favourites found themselves beaten. A World Cup season truncated due to the presence of the Olympics the previous summer would be decided overall for the events contested, although many titles would go to absent teams due to performances in previous rounds.

Women’s Team Pursuit: Canada maintains Olympic formOlympic bronze medallist Canada - made up of Gillian Carleton, Jasmin Glaesser and Stephanie Roorda - made short work of the Ukrainian team - Ivanna Borovychenko, Valeriya Kononenko and Anna Nagarnaya - in the final of the Women’s Team Pursuit, making the catch with a lap still to race. The third place race also went with qualification, with Welsh Team USN - Elinor Barker, Amy Roberts and Ciara Horne - easily beat Italy - Simona Frapporti, Maria Giulia Confalonieri and Giulia Donato - to take the bronze medal.

With no teams taking part in all three World Cup events, fourth place was enough for Italy to secure overall victory, just one point ahead of Team USN.

Men’s Team Pursuit: Russia wins a close fight but Switzerland wins overallThe Men’s Team Pursuit also went to the fastest qualifier, with Russia - Evgeny Kovalev, Ivan Savitckiy, Alexander Serov and Nikolay Zhurkin - beating Switzerland - Loic Perizzolo, Tom Bohli, Silvan Dillier and Stefan Kueng - by almost three seconds in a closely fought final race.

The bronze medal was taken by Italy - Liam Bertazzo, Marco Coledan, Francesco Lamon and Michele Scartezzini - over a young Australian team - Trent Derecourt, Jack Cummings, Peter Loft and Tirian McManus - as the team in gold began to tire towards the end of the contest.

Second place was enough for Switzerland to take overall victory in the World Cup, with Russia in second despite only racing in two of the three events.

Women’s Team Sprint: Australia takes simple victory but Great Britain is the championThe Australian duo of Kaarle McCulloch and Stephanie Morton took a straightforward victory in the Women’s Team Sprint, ahead of China’s Xu Yulei and Zhong Tianshi by almost three-tenths of a second. Despite Zhong riding the second lap slightly faster than 22-year-old Morton, the experienced McCulloch had already given the Australian’s a commanding lead in the first.

In an all-Russian ride off for the bronze medal, the national team of Daria Shmeleva and Anastasia Voynova beat Petroholding Leningrad’s Elena Brezhniva and Ekaterina Gnidenko.

Although it was not competing in the Mexican event, Great Britain’s victories in the first two rounds were more than enough to secure overall World Cup victory.

Men’s Team Sprint: New Zealand surprises FranceThe New Zealand trio of Ethan Mitchell, Sam Webster and Edward Dawkins took a surprise victory over World and Olympic silver medallists France (Kevin Sireau, Francois Pervis, Michaël D’Almeida). Despite the French riding both the second and third laps faster than New Zealand, a terrible start to the race - the worst of all the four medal finalists - gave the remaining riders in the team too big a gap to close.

Another young Australian team, of Alex Bird, Mitchell Bullen and Peter Lewis, beat the RusVelo trio of Denis Dmitriev, Nikita Shurshin and Andrey Kubeev to take the bronze.

Despite only finishing sixth, victory in the first two events was enough to secure the overall World Cup for Germany by a huge margin.

Women’s Points Race: Race and overall for Katarzyna PawlowskaWorld Scratch Race champion Katarzyna Pawlowska of Poland took victory in the Women’s Points Race, as one of four riders to have lapped the field twice. Consistent sprinting throughout the event gave the Polish rider a points total of 51, to finish well clear of the Czech Republic’s Jarmila Machacova on 41. A better finish on the final sprint - although neither scored points - was enough to earn Cuban Yudelmis Dominguez Massague the bronze medal over Mexican Sofia Arreola Navarro, both of whom tied on 40 points.

Since this was the first and only appearance of the Women’s Points Race in the 2012/13 World Cup [the Men’s Points Race had not been held either - ed] Pawlowska’s victory meant that she also took the season-long competition.

Men’s Omnium: Artur Ershov takes a commanding lead into day twoRusVelo’s Artur Ershov was by far the most consistent rider in the first three events of the Men’s Omnium, to take a commanding lead into the second day. The Russian rider finished second in the Flying Lap, fourth in the Points Race, and won the Elimination to finish day one with just seven points.

Liu Hao of Giant Pro Cycling ended the day just three points behind Ershov, on ten, having taken an early lead by winning the Flying Lap and finishing second in the Points Race. The Chinese rider could only manage seventh in the Elimination, however, which allowed Ershov to move ahead.

Vivien Brisse of France was a clear third after the first three events, despite taking sixth, fifth and third. A lack of consistency from the rest of the field, however, meant that the Frenchman’s score of 14 was seven points clear of Czech rider Ondrej Rybin in fourth.